


Team Kakashi vs. Paperwork

by LullabyKnell



Series: Team Seven vs. Paperwork [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Gen Work, Humor, Konoha Village, No Slash, Paperwork, Universe Alteration, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5701867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LullabyKnell/pseuds/LullabyKnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's another Team Seven. After so many long years and failed teams, Kakashi has finally passed the fourth Team Seven in Konoha's commonly-known history after his own, his sensei's, and the Legendary Sannin themselves. Oh god, what was he even <em>thinking?</em></p><p>The finale to the Team Seven vs. Paperwork series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Team Kakashi vs. Paperwork

**Author's Note:**

> **STOP! STOP! STOP!** To read this fic and understand it, you _need_ to read at least Part 2 of this series: ["Team Jiraiya vs. Paperwork"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5552996) _and_ Part 3: ["Team Minato vs. Paperwork"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5553524). If you don't, it won't make sense. So that's _necessary_ reading, but I also recommend Part 1: ["The Pre-Legendary Sannin vs. Paperwork"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5548604). 
> 
> Unfortunately, there's no Sai or Yamato here. I don't know either of them very well and this idea came well-developed, so I'd have to think about them more. 
> 
> As some of you probably suspect, Kakashi's luck took a sharp left turn.

There's another Team Seven. After so many long years and failed teams, Kakashi has finally passed the fourth Team Seven in Konoha's commonly-known history after his own, his sensei's, and the Legendary Sannin themselves. Oh god, what was he even _thinking?_

Kakashi's not oblivious, he knows what's coming for him. He remembers his sensei nearly pulling all of his bright blond hair out over his students' collective inability to turn in paperwork that might make the desk-shinobi happy. He remembers Jiraiya's stories about all the problems that he and his teammates caused for the Sandaime Hokage, and all the stories about Jiraiya's troubles with his own minion genin and their terrible, terrible paperwork.

Mori Hanako and Taiki – Kakashi shudders at the reminder of them – are still living happily in the village somewhere. Kakashi knows this because Gai adores them and insists on telling Kakashi every update in his cousins' lives, completely oblivious to the fact that Kakashi is definitely not listening and doesn't at all care about the completely incomprehensible success of Taiki's latest book of poetry, or Hanako becoming an infiltration teacher to capable chuunin, or how their kids are making popsicle-stick Hokage Monuments in their art class at school this week.

Kakashi's pretty sure that Gai has his student slip their photos in Kakashi's wallet while Gai distracts him (and it's absolutely no one's business is Kakashi is too lazy to take them out).

And, huh, Rock Lee, now there was a surprise. While Kakashi's glad Gai's found someone – to pass his techniques onto, not because Kakashi has ever entertained the thought that Gai would make a really great parent – he was horrified to learn that that kind of extroverted weirdness could appear outside the Mori family.

_Oh god, they're not just breeding, they're infectious!_

Lee, of course, was immediately and joyfully adopted into the Mori-Maito family fold. The boy will never be an actor or an infiltrator, but he wasn't half bad at the interpretative dance necessary for the adoption ceremony, which Kakashi only attended (as Gai's Plus-One) because someone (Gai) promised him an eggplant dish (it wasn't worth it). And on that note, he will pay good money to _never_ see Mori-Maito interpretative dance _ever_ again – it's always a combination of all of his worst nightmares come to life and set to music.

The only reason that Kakashi sticks around when Gai and Lee suddenly drop in with Mori Hoshiko, Honoka, and Takashi for a playdate is because, while there's no way the ankle-biters aren't going to turn out weird, it's Kakashi's civic duty to make sure they don't end up in green jumpsuits. Being part of Mori-Maito family, those kids need _someone_ relatively normal in their lives.

Kakashi's not talking about himself. God, no. He means Pakkun and his summons, all very sane and excellent role models, who love spending time with children and helping the kids act out plays for their 'Uncle Gai' and 'Big Brother Lee' while 'Uncle Kakashi' hides in the tree outside the window. Kakashi had no idea that Bull and Bisuke loved musicals so much and could hit those kind of high notes.

… He's lost his point.

Kakashi's point is that Team Seven's paperwork is cursed and now it's his turn as jounin-sensei to suffer. All the evidence suggests that it gets worse and worse with each generation, so Kakashi's expecting hell that'll make his ANBU training look like Academy recess in comparison.

It's always possible – however absolutely tiny the possibility – that the fourth time will be the charm, but Kakashi's not betting on it. His luck, while great for keeping his fantastic ass alive, is just not that good. Plus, Kakashi's luck is pretty shit in general, and his luck when it comes to paperwork is even shittier, so he owes the universe a lot of suffering and now the time has come to pay his debt.

The desk-shinobi, while extremely, _extremely_ fearful of the upset that is to come, are practically seething with vengeful glee that Hatake Kakashi is going to suffer Team Seven's paperwork curse. They have been waiting for this comeuppance for a long time.

Which reminds Kakashi that he should probably find that mission report that was due three weeks ago and finish it, or at least get somewhere past the current length of three sentences, which are either about a bird he saw or a missing-nin he fought, one or the other. The desk-shinobi have been waiting for that for quite a long time too and he should probably do something about it.

Eh, maybe later. He already made his report to the Hokage.

He has no doubt that this generation of Team Seven is going to be the worst. What he already knew of his adorable little minions before he got his team, the profiles that he was given when he was assigned his new team, and the Bell Test he ran after he met his new team, they all cinch it.

First, there's Uzumaki Naruto.

What Kakashi already knew: his sensei's son is definitely Kushina's son and has apparently been committing pranks then successfully fleeing the ANBU sent after him for years. That speaks of a potential skill and innate talent that makes Kakashi regret agreeing to be the kid's wrangler, because it sounds like a good way to pass out from exhaustion and then get drawn on with permanent marker.

What the profiles told Kakashi: his sensei's son is a problem student who, in the opinion of his Academy teacher, would apparently benefit from a more kinesthetic learning approach and a very patient teacher. Kakashi looks forward to taking a hands-on approach and helping his sensei's son improve his perspective on life.

What officially meeting Uzumaki Naruto told Kakashi: this is going to go either fantastically or terribly and there will never be an in-between. Ever. Also, the orange looks even worse up close and Kakashi is going to pull his protector down on his normal eye if he has to keep looking at it.

Second, there's Uchiha Sasuke.

What Kakashi already knew: the Uchiha heir has replaced Kakashi in the Psych Department as their poster 'problem child'. Kakashi is absolutely not at all upset that it's no longer a picture of him that hangs in their main office with a whole bunch of warnings next to it; it's not like he worked _really_ hard and systematically to add to that list of warnings or anything. (Shut up, Tenzo, he's _not_ upset.)

What the profiles told Kakashi: the Uchiha heir is a very skilled if very unfriendly student who, according to his teacher, gets a lot of intense attention for everything that he does from most of the other students. Kakashi looks forward greatly to helping little Sasuke improve his perspective on life as well.

What officially meeting Uchiha Sasuke told Kakashi: holy shit, Sasuke actually deserves that spot on the Psych Department's wall and Kakashi is _definitely_ looking forward to helping little Sasuke improve his perspective on life. He hasn't met a colder, more closed-off, more issue-ridden kid since himself, and that reminder alone deserves a number of laps around the village to help warm the kid up.

Third, there's Haruno Sakura.

What Kakashi already knew: absolutely nothing.

What the profiles told Kakashi: the pink-haired girl is more of a classroom student than a shinobi, but her teacher is of the opinion that she has the potential to be very good if she could just stop being fanciful and redirect her ambitions. (Whatever that meant.) She would likely make a very good medic-nin, or one of the other Konoha factions that generally stayed within the village with interspersed missions, like the Academy teachers or the desk-shinobi or so on.

What officially meeting Haruno Sakura told Kakashi: oh no, fangirl. Help. He didn't sign up for that. 'Redirect ambitions', yeah, right. No shit.

Also, whoever got conned this year into putting these teams together, given the feud between the Academy teachers and the desk-shinobi, is doing as bang-up a job as all the previous people conned into it. Clearly, this team was designed to be efficient and functional and not at all resembling a bunch of explosive tags about to go off.

But, then again, maybe that's intentional. Kakashi's due the worse Team Seven yet by tradition, by curse, and by universal return energy. Maybe the universe and some random desk-shinobi or Academy teacher or other shinobi just decided to help things along and get their long-awaited revenge on the side.

Finally, Team Seven as a whole.

What Kakashi already knew: there will be horrible, horrible paperwork.

What the profiles told Kakashi: these children have problems and his doom is nigh.

What officially meeting Team Seven told Kakashi: this dysfunctional mess will make the curse proud.

Genma and Anko will be happy. They have quite a number of bets on how terribly Kakashi is going to suffer under Team Seven's paperwork curse.

Genma, having had to chase Uzumaki Naruto across Konoha a number of times as ANBU, is certain that Naruto is going to make his mother proud and wreak hell of a kind like the last Team Seven did on his father.

Anko, on the other hand, is betting on Sakura being the worst of the lot. Not as a symbolic gesture of support for another potentially chaotic kunoichi or anything similar, Anko is just absolutely certain that it's going to be the quiet one. Look at that pink hair! In Anko's wise and learned opinion, hair like that is nothing less than an omen of pure evil.

Kakashi ignored them both and supposed then that it's going to be Sasuke who's the worst. He isn't sure how, since there was utterly no way to predict how any member of Team Seven would go off the deep end in terms of awful paperwork, but the boy had the moodiness for it. Kakashi can already see future interference from the Psych Department and the Council due to whatever problems the Uchiha heir's mission reports will undoubtably cause.

Kakashi checks the time and realizes that he's made an exceptionally fashionable arrival time for himself and had better get moving before his cute little genin try to kill each other. He can't let them do that, if only because Inuzuka Tsume is holding the betting pot and she'll rip his face off if she has to hand the whole thing over to Ibiki for betting the whole thing will end in multiple homicide.

At the very least, his genin won't have to write their own mission reports until after their first C-rank. D-ranks, which he's so looking forward to assigning and will without doubt greatly improve all his students' perspectives on life, don't really need mission reports and the jounin-sensei is permitted to make a collective one for the whole team. (Kakashi searched through _so many_ manuals and Shinobi Code books to find that loophole.)

And while Kakashi loathes the idea of making work for himself where he could get genin to do it, he's willing to scribble a few sentences about vegetables and home repair to put off the curse for a little while longer. It's not a permanent solution, but it'll probably at least give Kakashi some idea of what to expect from the little monsters as he gets to know them better, and also a reprieve from the oncoming hell of the combined forces of Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura.

God, does Kakashi love procrastination.

 

Oh damn, he can't procrastinate any longer.

They already made their verbal report on the Wave C-rank turned A-rank to the Hokage, but today is the day that his genin's written mission reports are due. While Kakashi has no problem turning in his own reports ridiculously late – he's not turning in his own mission report today – the desk-shinobi will dump his dead body in the Forest of Death if they think he's been passing on his own carefully-cultivated paperwork habits to malleable genin.

So Kakashi's told his team to meet at the usual place and is prepared to just get this over with.

At least, unlike the Sandaime and the Toad Sannin and his sensei, Kakashi is going into this with his eye wide open and fully expecting to face almost certain death. He can't afford to be arrogant on this one. Over a decade in ANBU and he knows that he's still not ready for this fight; all he can do now is just let it happen and _not_ run away to join his sensei's sensei and hide forever.

Kakashi even has a few theories about what he's going to face.

Naruto, he's betting, is going to do something that involves his pranking abilities. If Kakashi had to line his current adorable little genin with the Team Seven members of the past, he's going to put Naruto down as a horrifying and disastrous combination of Senju Tsunade, Mori Hanako, and Uchiha Obito. He's going to do something big and dramatic that'll cause village-wide chaos.

Sasuke is easy to pin down (which probably means that Kakashi is going to be horribly wrong about him, because that's just how these things work) as being a combination of Orochimaru, Wakahisa Taiki, and Kakashi himself. Sasuke, it seems, is the incarnation of Kakashi's misdeeds coming back to give him his just desserts. The boy is moody, dramatic, with massive, extremely justified psychological issues, and Kakashi honestly wouldn't put it past Sasuke to have a secret hobby of terrible poetry.

And Sakura... oh god, Kakashi's just realized that this would make Sakura somehow a combination of Jiraiya, Namikaze Minato, and Nohara Rin. Kakashi doesn't even remotely know what on earth that could possibly be like, but he knows that he fears it on an instinctual level deep inside his soul.

He's signing them all up for the Chuunin Exams as soon as possible.

All his genin are here now and Kakashi wants to leave some period left in the day to recover from whatever's going to happen, so he's officially run out of time. They all have their reports tucked away, so he won't see anything if he just keeps watching. Besides, it's either this or help Gai and Lee plan Taiki and Hanako's surprise anniversary party and that's just not happening. (He physically _cannot_ go through another catering taste-tasting session.)

Kakashi takes a deep breath and then hops out of his tree, startling all three of his genin. Hmm... that's not great. He'll have to work on their observational skills if they really didn't notice him, come up with some drill or another that'll help them improve their perspective on life.

“Late!” Sakura yelps, on reflex instead of actually being an accusation, then she frowns deeply and says in a confused voice, “...by fifteen minutes?” She checks something in her thoughts, probably looking for a missing two hours but finding nothing, and is forced to confirm, “Late by fifteen minutes.”

Sasuke slowly reaches for a kunai, face blank but posture full of suspicion. Kakashi's going to guess that the paranoid little brat thinks he's an impostor, while Sakura's probably running through the probability of someone managing to impersonate their sensei in Konoha, and Naruto...

“Oh my god,” Naruto says, eyes going wide. “Who died?!”

Kakashi raises his hands and makes a calming gesture. “Maa, Naruto, no one's dead.”

 _Yet,_ his mind points out helpfully.

“I just want to get this out of the way so I can enjoy my weekend,” Kakashi tells them, stuffing his hands back into his pockets so his genin can't see them twitching with the knowledge that his entire weekend is probably going to be an all-out grudge-match between him and the desk-shinobi.

Kakashi saw one of the desk-shinobi today and, in preparation for this day, as the desk-shinobi have been preparing for since his new Team Seven was formed, she was armed to the teeth and then some. He's not sure he's going to win that one.

Sasuke still looks suspicious. “We didn't need to meet to hand in our reports,” he says, watching Kakashi carefully for further signs of non-Kakashi-ness. “Mission reports can be handed in individually by each member of the team.”

“So there was no need for us to meet today?” Sakura asks, clearly outraged.

Naruto groans loudly and thumps his head back against the tree he's leaning on. “I could have handed this in yesterday?” he says, then realizes angrily, “It's our off-day! I could be sleeping right now!”

Kakashi originally despaired at the idea that his cute little monsters would never agree on anything, but Sasuke and Sakura clearly concur by their betrayed looks that turn into hateful glares. Well, at the very least, Kakashi can pat himself on the back for improving their perspectives on life and instilling some sense of unity and cooperation in them, even if through shared homicidal feelings.

Kakashi feels a tingle of fear down his spine at the knowledge that Naruto's had his mission report ready since yesterday. Naruto trains his skills hard, but he's more of a spur-of-the-moment kind of person in planning, except when it comes to his pranking, which is at least partly planned out beforehand. Oh, this doesn't bode well.

Also... “Sasuke, I'm not an impostor. I have the Sharingan, you have two, and if you stab me, I'm throwing you in a river,” Kakashi says bluntly, staring challengingly at the boy. When the boy's hand doesn't move and he just looks sullen about it, Kakashi adds gleefully, “I think it'll improve your perspective on life a _lot._ ”

Sasuke takes his hand away from the kunai _very_ quickly and Naruto says, “Oh shit, it really _is_ him!”

“Sensei, why are we doing this?” Sakura demands with all possible preteen exasperation. “I have to help my mother clean the house today.”

“I thought this was something we should do as a team for the first time,” Kakashi says with a very casual shrug, and all three genin still immediately. “Big milestone and all that, handing in your first mission report, and for an A-rank too.”

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura stare disbelievingly at him.

Kakashi ignores their looks and claps his hands together, nearly wincing at the loud sound. “So!” And oh, god, his false cheeriness is grating even to his own ears. “Mission reports! Let's see them!”

His adorable genin still look confused, but they all pull out paper anyway. Kakashi watches them all very warily and resists the urge to jump away and use his Sharingan. The hospital medic-nin will hunt him down if he runs himself into the chakra exhaustion wall twice in such a short amount of time, even if it was to face the Team Seven paperwork curse.

At first glance, everything seems normal. Nothing terrible is glaringly obvious. Sasuke's seems a little short, but the kid's not much for words, and it doesn't _look_ like terrible poetry. Sakura's is folded neatly, but only in half, not anything like Rin's complicated origami creations. And Naruto's is a little scuffed around the edges, but in fine shape nevertheless - no nin-puppy pawprints or anything.

Naruto holds his out towards Kakashi.

Kakashi's ANBU-trained instincts, which have automatically switched to S-rank-level alert, catch the sudden movement and potential threat to his life immediately. _'IncOMING KUNAI! POISON SENBON!'_ they screech, taking over his senses. _'EXPLOSIVE TAGS! EXPLOSIVE TAGS! EXPLOSIVE TAGS! GET BACK! RUN, RUN, RUN!'_

Kakashi is five steps back with a kunai in hand before he even realizes he reacted.

Naruto, still holding out his mission report, has his jaw wide opens as he gapes at his sensei. Sakura and Sasuke are equally wide-eyed, and now Sasuke has his kunai fully in hand as he hastily searches the area for whatever potential threat he thinks Kakashi sensed.

“Sensei...?” Sakura asks warily.

Kakashi immediately stands up straight and tucks the kunai away, cursing his own survival instincts and wondering how the hell he can play this off.

“Ah... Sakura, just thought I saw the black cat that's always wandering in my path and making me late,” he explains.

Any hint of sympathy instantly leaves Sakura's expression, while Naruto keeps on staring disbelievingly and Sasuke scowls sullenly while tucking his own kunai away. Sakura holds up her own mission report and Kakashi is very proud to say that he manages not to flinch at it.

“Are you going to take our mission reports?” Sakura demands.

No way in hell. Kakashi's not touching those things unless someone ties him up and pushes them in his face, and even then he'd roll himself away. He's resigned himself to how those papers are going to make his perfectly decent life a miserable, bureaucratic hell, but he's not going to make it that easy for his cute monster genin.

“No, no, just wanted to make sure that you had them,” Kakashi says, pulling out his spare copy of his spare copy of Icha Icha Reliance (he's not risking any of his precious book collection to what's about to happen) and starting towards the Hokage Tower. “Hurry up! Let's go!”

Even though it's probably going to make the paperwork curse even worse than it's already going to be, Kakashi's soul still feeds off the glares that his students are all leveling at his back. Admittedly, he could be really nice to his genin in the hopes that they'd make it easy on him, but that didn't work for any of his predecessor jounin-sensei, including Minato, who was generally known as an exceedingly nice pushover unless someone pushed too far over the wrong line and he very suddenly wasn't.

And... well... there are good reasons why Kakashi's got a lot of bad paperwork energy coming his way.

 

Meeting at a training ground and then walking to the Hokage Tower is pointless according to an irate Sakura and moody Sasuke – if they had to meet up at all, why could they just meet up at the Hokage Tower itself? But Kakashi disagrees; there is a very good reason why they're taking the long route and leaving themselves out in the vulnerable open like this: he needs to know exactly what he's going to be in for the foreseeable future.

If he's going to face the Second Coming of Obito's Perilous Journey to Hokage Tower, then Kakashi wants to know sooner than later if he has to know at all. If the first time is going to be the worst, he needs to jade himself for his own self-preservation, and if they're going to get worse over time, he wants to have some inkling of what he's facing. Scouting the territory ahead was a vital part of surviving deadly missions, every shinobi knew that.

So far... nothing. Good god, he hates suspense.

Suspense, in Kakashi's firm opinion, is for improving genin perspectives on life and for the excellence that are his sensei's sensei's novels. Every time he experiences a drawn-out feeling of tension, it usually means that the ceiling is about to fall in or everything would end with everything on fire – at least, that's how it worked on his ANBU missions. Otherwise it usually just meant the other jounin had gotten dangerously bored and were seeking booze and/or entertainment, or that Gai was about to appear out of nowhere and challenge Kakashi again.

Oh god, Kakashi hopes Gai doesn't show up. He doesn't need that right now. There's a reason he told his genin to meet up when Gai has an appointment with the caterer for Hanako and Taiki's wedding anniversary party (seriously, he cannot go through tasting fifty-three different kinds of basically the exact same thing again), and that reason wears a green jumpsuit (he doesn't care _what_ kind of sad face Gai makes or how many tears there are). Thankfully, Gai had dragged his genin with him to food-taste instead, so that meant no smaller green jumpsuit either.

Oh _god,_ what if Hanako or Taiki shows up? He'll have to go missing-nin then, because this paperwork is going to be bad, but he doesn't want it to be _Mori_ family bad. It'll be just his luck if they do show up and _damn,_ he's going to miss Konoha. Oh well, couldn't be helped; off to the beaches of Fire Country for him.

He's not going to miss Konoha's staring though. They're being watched, as they walk towards the Hokage Tower, by many, many shinobi. There are two elderly ex-shinobi watching them from a restaurant table; there are a handful of Academy teachers slumped on a bench who look still-hungover from their continuous school-break partying last night and clearly pity him what's coming; there's a medic-nin just coming off a night-shift blatantly staring and letting their to-go meal drip on the ground; there's an ANBU in civilian clothing buying their groceries and spying just behind them; and there's a desk-shinobi scout who quickly disappears to warn his waiting fellows of their approach.

And also, clearly with nothing better to do with their time, Genma and Anko wave at Kakashi from atop a roof. Kakashi, still pretending to read his book, subtly flips them off and ignores their responding cackles that he can still hear half a block later.

He can't afford them any attention, not with the chaos that could pounce at any moment and the dangers that lurk in every shadow and around every corner.

“Stop,” he orders his genin.

They do, and even though their understanding of what is happening hasn't been cleared up, none of them bother to look confused. Instead, Naruto groans loudly and drops his head into his hands, Sakura's face pinches and she crosses her arms, and Sasuke looks like he very dearly wants to smack his head repeatedly against the nearest wall. Sasuke settles for hitting his head against Naruto's back instead (“Dead-last, stand still.”), and it really says something that Naruto doesn't even seem to notice or care.

“ _Again_?” Sakura demands flatly.

“Sakura, street safety is very important.”

All three of his genin stare at the ox-drawn cart of vegetables slowly passing by to make its way to the market. A brisk walk could have let them cross the street before the cart got in their way, but Kakashi's not taking any chances. Just like he didn't take any chances with the puddle he made them take a large circle around and the street he made them avoid because he thought he saw a squirrel down there.

Sakura huffs and starts tapping her foot as they wait for the ox-drawn cart to slowly go by. Once it's finally out of the way (after a whole thirty-eight seconds), she makes to go forward immediately, just like Naruto, but Kakashi slips his book away and grabs them both by the collar of their shirts before they can make a terrible mistake.

“It's important to look both ways before crossing the street,” Kakashi reminds them when they stare questioningly at him. When they keep staring questioningly at him, he adds, “For safety reasons.”

Sasuke, with his makeshift wall taken away from him, sighs like he's the most long-suffering person in the whole wide world. Then he steps up, activates his Sharingan, and makes a dramatic show of looking down left down the street, then right, while all his teammates stare at him with general expressions of _what the hell_ (Naruto and Sakura) and _huh_ (Kakashi).

Then Sasuke deactivates his Sharingan – ooh, Kakashi is _so_ not envious about that, _not at all_ – and marches across the street without looking back. Since the boy's point has been pretty effectively and undeniably proven, Kakashi releases Naruto and Sakura, who follow their teammate immediately, then pulls out his book and wanders to join Sasuke on the other side of the street too.

“Maa, Sasuke,” he comments casually, “I think that was overkill.”

Sakura and Naruto stare incredulously, while Sasuke looks absolutely mutinous.

Probably a bad idea to make wisecracks with the situation that Kakashi's in, but... he couldn't resist.

 

A little while later, still making their incredibly slow progress to Hokage Tower and encountering nothing but staring shinobi or civilians going about their business, Kakashi is so on edge that it's not even slightly funny anymore. He feels like he's going to jump out of his skin if _something_ doesn't happen, and by the growing numbers of anxious desk-shinobi scouts, he's probably not alone in wanting a threat to appear already so he can fry it with an unnecessary amount of lightning.

“Sensei, this is taking _forever_ ,” Naruto groans dramatically. “If we were going any slower we'd be walking _backwards,_ y'know! Can't we hurry up! I'm _dying_ here!”

“Some things take time to be done right, Naruto,” Kakashi replies chidingly, as he casually turns a page of his book and only barely manages not to throw kunai at a duck that walked around a corner a little too quickly for his stretched-to-snapping-point senses. “Besides, that's good for improving your perspective on life.”

Naruto groans again, even louder than before. “Sensei, _please,_ ” he begs shamelessly, rifling in one of his hideously orange pockets and pulling out the dreaded paperwork that was causing all of this. “Here, can't you just take this to the tower fo-”

At this offering, Kakashi automatically puts a half-skip in between his steps to put distance between him and the potential massive explosive tag. “No, no, Naruto,” he replies tightly, casually turning another page without reading a word. “This is something you have to do yourself.”

Naruto looks vaguely confused at the space between them that wasn't there before, with an alarming, considering furrow to his brow that makes him look like Minato, but then he obviously and thankfully dismisses it as nothing important.

“Ugh,” he complains, before taking back the massive explosive tag.

Kakashi flawlessly steps back to his center position between his sensei's son and the brooding one, ignoring the annoyed glare Sasuke had been giving him for daring to even look like he might break a personal space bubble. Ah, disaster temporarily avoided, Kakashi thinks with relief, still on high-alert for other possible threats and trying not to flip off the shinobi snickering behind a fruit cart.

Then Naruto suddenly extends the papers again. “Oh, _come on,_ sensei-”

Kakashi, busy on the lookout for rogue water pipes and runaway nin-puppies, isn't able to make his... well, it's essentially a flinch, so... full-body flinch away seem natural or not suspicious. He automatically shied away from Naruto's paperwork on instinct, and only notices what he's done when Naruto takes the papers back again, wearing a Kushina-suspicious and Minato-considering look on his whiskered face.

Oh, no.

Kakashi does his best to poke his nose further into the book he's not reading, tries to shift his panicked limbs into as casual a pose as possible, all in a desperate attempt to seem like he's _not_ deeply terrified of even touching those sheets of paper. But it's clearly not working, and then he notices that, on his other side, Sasuke has witnessed this entire exchange and looks equally suspicious.

 _Extra_ oh, no.

Then the worst thing yet happened: Naruto and Sasuke's eyes met, and they exchanged a _look._

Oh, fuck.

With a Kushina-smug and Minato-oh-I-get-it expression, Naruto withdraws the offered papers, but he doesn't put them away. And on Kakashi's other side, Sasuke pulls out his own mission report, with an expression that was too bland to be called mischief but...

“Sensei,” Sasuke says, lips twitching with something that looks like it very much wants to be a smile as he holds out the papers, “Could you please read over my report for any mistakes?” And that's how Kakashi knows this is bullshit, because the regular Sasuke would _never_ ask that and might fight anyone who even offered on sheer insult.

Kakashi steps away from Sasuke's papers as subtly as he can. “No, no, Sasuke,” he answers tightly, trying to keep his eye out on their surroundings, also trying to lean as far away from the curse's manifestation as possible without looking like he's trying to avoid suffering from a three-generation-long-and-counting curse. “I'm sure you've done fine.”

“Please, sensei, I insist.”

 _Never_ has Kakashi heard bland innocence sound so gleefully vicious. _Never._

“No,” he replies flatly. He's trying to sound as disinterested as possible, but it's really, really hard when Sasuke keeps pushing those papers closer and Kakashi has to move closer to Naruto for safety. No one should ever have to move closer to Kushina's spawn for safety from an _Uchiha_ prank.

This is _wrong._

“Oh, are you checking our reports, sensei?” Naruto asks then – _oh no oh no ohnonono –_ just as wickedly innocent as his teammate. “Sensei, read mine over too!” Argh, papers, papers from the other side; they're surrounding him. “It's not fair if you just read over that bastard's report!”

“That's right,” Sasuke agrees – Kakashi knew it, he fucking _knew_ it would be the end times when these two agreed on anything – while pushing his demonic report closer still. “Dead-lasts need all the help that they can get, sensei.”

“Shut up, bastard,” Naruto replies, and never has he done that while sounding so cheerful before. “I just don't want you getting any special treatment from sensei, ya know! Sensei should take and read _all_ of our reports, right, sensei?”

“Ugh,” Kakashi replies intelligently, caught in the middle of everything he feared about this day.

“He'll take forever on yours,” Sasuke says without any real bite. “He should read mine first.”

Papers. They're getting _closer._ His ANBU-trained instincts are basically shrieking and rolling around on the floor wildly. _'Explosive tags! IncOMING EXPLOSIVE TAGS! POISON! FIRE! RUN, RUN, RUN! INCOMING IMMEDIATE AND PAINFUL DEATH!'_

“No, he should read mine first! You don't need any help, you bastard! Sensei, read mine!”

Oh god, they're nearly _touching him._

“I asked first, dead-last!”

_'DeaDLY NINJUTSU! FUINJUTSU! KENJUTSU SOMEHOW! FLEE! FLEE! FLEE!'_

“I asked him second, bastard! What's the difference?! Come on, sensei!”

Naruto pushes his paper forward again and the edge of a page finally crosses the line by threatening to brush against Kakashi's elbows. That's _it._ Kakashi can't take being caught between these two forces of evil any longer and (casually, casually, casually) jumps back, letting Naruto and Sasuke's cursed paperwork bump into each other instead of their jounin-sensei.

Kakashi is actually surprised that the two curse manifestations don't create a vortex of pure evil and suffering when they touch – a soul-sucking void that will slowly consume the world. Instead, the two mission reports only brush before Naruto and Sasuke turn to look at him.

Naruto's expression is Kushina-hah-I-gotcha and Minato-oho-I-know-something-you-don't-want-me-to.

Sasuke's expression is Fugaku-I-was-right and Mikoto-secretly-pleased-and-smug.

Oh _god,_ Kakashi thinks, feeling desperate and terrified. Wasn't Uchiha Mikoto on Kushina's genin team? He forgot about it in the middle of worrying about the Team Seven curse, since Kushina mostly grew out of it, but the desk-shinobi _hated_ that team with a passion that rivaled their dealings with Team Seven. Mikoto and Kushina were very good friends, weren't they?

Fuck. Fuck, _fuck, fuckfuckfuck._

He's so _fucked._

“I'm not reading your reports,” Kakashi tells them both, clamping down on the terror rising in his soul by shoving his face into his book – safe space, he wants his _safe space_. “Learning by doing is the best way to improve your perspective on life.”

Sakura looks up at him, thoroughly unimpressed with the jounin-sensei that she is unknowingly shielding in Kakashi's tactical retreat. “Sensei, you're so lazy,” she says, crossing her arms and thankfully – sweet gods, _thank you –_ not pulling out her own mission report. “It's like you're allergic to the idea of extra work.”

Kakashi eyes her thoughtfully. “Been peeking at my medical records, Sakura? That's not nice.”

Sakura sputters, then scowls, and ahead of them, Naruto and Sasuke exchange another look before putting away their mission reports. Oh, god, Kakashi wants to get down on his knees and kiss somebody's feet in gratitude, which is a platonic kink he never knew he had.

But this is only the beginning, he reminds himself. He's diverted the curse for now, but only just for now. He'll be seeing those mission reports again, and not only in his nightmares, because this is the just the beginning of the end.

 

Iruka pinches the bridge of his nose. He didn't even drink that much last night, and he went home early compared to the drunken benders that his fellow Academy teachers had been well on their way towards, but he still has a headache. Seriously, ugh, why.

If he were smart like his coworkers, he'd be sleeping it off right now, but since he just can't stand staying unproductive for more than a week, he tumbled out of bed for his shift at the Mission Assignment Desk this morning instead of staying for school-break body-shots last night.

Working the desk is an... interesting experience. Many of the desk-shinobi have been retiring recently and the rest have a _lot_ of saved vacation time, so they need people to help them keep Konoha running smoothly but... they try to reject him every year. Iruka's been working with them for years now, he's good friends with a handful of desk-shinobi and friendly acquaintances with most of the rest, and yet they _still_ dither about trying to find reasons to fire him or turn him away.

“It's nothing personal,” they insist, before they're eventually unable to find anything and are grudgingly forced to let Iruka into Hokage Tower to help with their precious paperwork.

He's not sure why they do it, but from what he's gathered, the repeated attempts to dismiss him seem to center around his position at the Academy. It's _really_ nothing personal, one friendlier desk-shinobi attempted to explain at the beginning, it's just there's the whole Academy teachers and desk-shinobi feud thing, so he was probably sent to destroy them from the inside.

Iruka, benevolent and gracious as he is, has elected to take the whole thing as a running joke. He won't believe that the warm and wise Academy teachers and the sharp and smart desk-shinobi are really so unreasonable and ridiculous. Feuds, _honestly,_ what absolute nonsense. It's probably just an excuse to foist the paperwork of the team assignment off on him every year.

Well, there is that secret staff room for the desk-shinobi that Iruka's not allowed to even be informed of. (It's on the third floor; you go through the janitor's closet that's second on the right just off the stairs on the second floor, then up through the trapdoor opened by pulling the blue book in the center of the top shelf; the password is 'Wakahisa'. Honestly, Iruka's a chuunin, but he's not blind or useless.) But Iruka assumes that it's just for full-time desk-shinobi and not temps, given how the final door is labeled 'Secret Room of Desk-Shinobi, second oldest order of Konohakagure' and its insides are decorated with carefully unfolded or taped together mission reports by a Nohara Rin and the desk-shinobi that 'solved' her work, and a large framed portrait of the Nidaime Hokage (which honestly resembles a _shrine_ ).

It is a little weird how his stapler skills once had the desk-shinobi telling him that he should have been one of them, and to leave the Academy for his true calling, but Iruka shut down that poor joke by telling them that his true calling _is_ teaching young shinobi. Just like how it's weird that some of his fellow teachers told him that he must return fully to the Academy before he was tainted by the desk-shinobi, and they wouldn't stop joking about it until Iruka finally snapped and told them to cut it out.

Who knew shinobi had such poor senses of humor?

It seriously isn't helping his headache that the desk-shinobi are in such a... god, he doesn't know the word... tizzy? Can that even apply to shinobi? Whatever, they're all heavily-armed and highly on-edge, which is never good for shinobi ever. They keep whispering about the 'return of the curse' and, with reports from desk-shinobi doing some kind of reconnaissance constantly passing by the window, how 'the curse approaches'.

Whatever has them so worked up, it's so bad that they tried to keep him from working today, even more than they already did. Usually it petered out to bad jokes after the first couple of weeks, but today they were in full force and fine form, even trying to threaten and _bribe_ him to take the day off.

Iruka could be heavily susceptible to nice bribes, especially trips to hot springs, oh, god was he _weak_ against those, but... those usually came with someone needing a favor like him taking an extra shift or helping them with a problem student. But this? This was like somebody walking up to him and offering to do all his grading for nothing or telling him to take a paid vacation day for no reason.

It was something too good to be true that no shinobi worth anything would fall for, so Iruka badgered his suspicious way past them and stubbornly plopped himself down in his usual desk anyway. He smells something off here, although not necessarily a trap, and he wants to know what. Iruka has always been too curious for his own good.

They even tried to cite his recently _healed_ injury as though he would die in the next five seconds if he didn't immediately fuck off to a hospital. Iruka _knows_ they processed a lot of his medical files and release papers, so that's bullshit.

A desk-shinobi that's been keeping watch by the window suddenly falls off their perch. Since the entire room has been on-edge all morning, Iruka's not too surprised when every single desk-shinobi stops what they're doing and pulls unreasonably large weapons out of seemingly nowhere.

He's a little curious as to why Midori has three katana since she's a genjutsu-user, and where the hell she was keeping them, but he's more concerned as to why she's holding one of them in her teeth. That doesn't seem... sensible.

“What is it, Kenta?” Supervisor Desk-Shinobi Naoko demands, wielding an odachi that she seems to have pulled from under her desk somehow. She looks like she's facing war, with a grim determination to her face that suggests she's mentally prepared to fight all of ANBU and kick their asses.

Kenta pulls himself off the floor, face gone unnaturally pale.

“They're here,” he whispers fearfully, staring at his hands like he's never seen them before. “They're on our doorstep.”

Izumo and Kotetsu, just returned from a mission, look over from where they were reporting to Midori with the three katana.

“Who's here?” Kotetsu asks curiously, kunai suddenly in his and Izumo's hands – because if you raise the tension in the room, any shinobi will react.

Iruka may or may not have a shuriken in the hand under his desk, and he can throw the pen he's holding in the other hand as accurately and deadly as he can a kunai.

“The new Team Seven,” Kenta whispers, rocking back and forth like he just witnessed hell itself.

Izumo and Kotetsu, instead of looking confused like Iruka feels, immediately stiffen.

“What?” Izumo says.

“The new Team Seven is handing in their first mission reports today,” Midori explains, eyes wide with fear and talking surprisingly coherently around the katana hilt between her teeth. “They'll be here within the next two minutes.”

Izumo and Kotetsu both blanch.

“You know what, Izu?” Kotetsu says suddenly. “I just remembered that I don't need my mission pay _right_ this second. We should go home and take a nap and come back tomorrow.”

“Excellent idea, 'Tetsu,” Izumo replies, grabbing his partner's sleeve (even afraid for his life, Izumo is still a germaphobe) and pulling him towards the nearest window. As they pass Iruka, Izumo gives his friend a scared and pitying look. “I'm so sorry, Iruka.”

“Wh-?” Iruka tries to ask.

“Just remember that we love you, man!” Kotetsu calls, just before they both jump out the window.

Iruka is more stunned that none of the desk-shinobi move to reprimand his friends more than that his friends suddenly jumped out the window for no explicable reason. The desk-shinobi are usually incredibly strict about using the door, to the point where Naoko, who's a chuunin, will literally drop-kick even disobedient jounin back out the window. He's pretty sure that the desk-shinobi wouldn't let the Sandaime _Hokage_ use the window.

“Well, _fuck this!_ ” Inuzuka Hana suddenly declares from where she was in the middle of accepting a new mission. “I'm not sticking around to get caught in that mess! Come on, Shinju! Let's go hide under a dumpster until this is all over.”

“Please, no. I can think of many more pleasant places to hide,” the female Aburame next to her replies, but she follows the other woman out of the room nevertheless.

And the two women are immediately followed by every shinobi that doesn't work here, all of them out the window without anything besides a few goodbyes and some, “I'll come back later for that important A-rank, yeah?”

Kenta tries to leave in the crowd as well, but Naoko stops him. “No, young desk-shinobi,” she says wearily. “You must do your duty and meet your fate.”

“But, Supervisor Naoko,” Kenta pleads, tearing up. “I'm scared.”

Naoko puts a hand on the shaking young man's shoulder. “I know, young desk-shinobi,” she says softly. “I'm scared too. But you must be brave and remember that your sacrifice will not be in vain. They will remember this day and they will remember that you stood strong against a fearsome foe.”

Kenta sniffs. “I'll... I'll try, Supervisor Naoko.”

“No, young desk-shinobi,” Naoko says, voice hard again. “That is no way to face our enemy. Against Team Seven, there is do or do not. There is no try, here. We don't have room for trying, now.”

“I'll... I'll do it, Supervisor Naoko,” Kenta says firmly, expression determined.

Naoko nods, then turns to face the rest of the room, odachi in a white-knuckled fist. “Today there is no room for weakness! No room for doubt!” she declares. “Today we face the curse that has plagued our ancestors for generations. Now it has arisen stronger than ever before, but we shall not yield – we shall not fall! For we are desk-shinobi and we were made to ENDURE! Now... WHO ARE WE?”

“DESK-SHINOBI!” the room returns.

Naoko jumps onto a desk and screams, “AND SHALL WE YIELD?”

“NO!” the desk-shinobi shout back, even Midori with a katana between her teeth.

“SHALL WE FALL?”

“NO!” the desk-shinobi shout back again, with Kenta the loudest of them all.

“WHAT WILL WE DO?”

“ENDURE!”

Iruka, who has taken part of none of this craziness and is sitting at his desk like he's the only sane man in the room, wonders why they don't seem to have any hope of victory in whatever battle they're fighting. He also wonders if he tripped and hit his head getting up this morning and if all of this is some sort of hallucination from a near-death experience and the good drugs at the hospital.

“ENDURE!” the desk-shinobi shout again.

Iruka pinches his arm to make sure that he's not dreaming all of this up, but no.

“ENDURE!”

It's possible, of course, that this is a genjutsu of some kind, but no friend or foe that Iruka knows of would ever come up with something like this. Besides, even as hard as he looks, there's absolutely no sign that this is a genjutsu and he's pretty good at spotting those – he has training in supervising large amounts of nin-children with sharp objects and skills they don't really know how to use.

“Now return to your posts!” Naoko shouts. “And prepare!”

“YES, SUPERVISOR NAOKO!”

Iruka's not entirely certain, but he thinks he might be missing something.

 

So it seems that Kakashi's not going to be facing Obito's Perilous Journey to Hokage Tower, but it's always possible that it's just waiting for a later time. This first time, they made it; they made it to the tower and now they're inside it and headed for the Mission Assignment Desk.

Kakashi's adorable little monsters have been looking so confused at all the shinobi – random assortments of janitors and T&I shinobi – diving out of their way. The guards throughout the tower took one look at Kakashi's frazzled and stressed look and immediately waved them through, without any questions whatsoever, not wanting to get in the way of a fourth-generation curse.

It's a terrible security loophole, but Kakashi doesn't care right now. He just wants this over with as fast as possible before Naruto and Sasuke figure out a way to fry his nerves entirely, making him permanently useless for shinobi work ever again.

This suspense is really, _really_ unnecessary and it's going to kill him.

Can't something horrible just _happen already?_

Well... he doesn't actually want anything horrible to happen, it's just that... something horrible _is_ going to happen and it doesn't need to make things more horrible by being late about it. Oh, god... _late_ about it... this _is_ the universe coming back to get him! It just figures that Kakashi's impending doom would be late about it and keep him waiting – makes perfect sense, really.

It's so fair and he _hates it._

“Well, this has been a waste of a morning,” Sakura says grouchily as they step into the Mission Assignment Desk after what feels approximately like forever. “I can't believe... where is everyone?”

The Mission Assignment Desk, usually fairly busy at this time of busy, is completely free of any shinobi who don't work here. Even at four in the goddamn morning, Kakashi has encountered other shinobi just returned from dangerous missions, but not now. Now there are only the desk-shinobi, three times as many than would normally be staffing this room, lying in wait and armed with more weapons than Gai's kunoichi genin.

The one that is clearly the supervisor has a blade that's longer than Kakashi's genin are tall.

“Is that _them?_ ” one desk-shinobi whispers. “Team Seven?”

“They don't look like much,” another desk-shinobi whispers back.

Another desk-shinobi smacks their colleagues. “You fools!” they hiss. “That's what people thought the last three times and remember how _those_ turned out!”

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura look around the room a bit more, obviously trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The desk-shinobi all hold their breath until Kakashi's genin look questioningly back at him. Kakashi does his best to look back at them as though this is nothing out of the ordinary for the Mission Assignment Desk, and not something pulled out of one of the Shinobi Wars.

“Well!” Kakashi proclaims cheerfully, putting away his precious spare, spare copy and clapping his hands together. “Go hand in your mission reports, my adorable genin!”

Every single one of the desk-shinobi flinch back. Every _single_ one.

Except...

Umino Iruka, the Academy teacher? That's interesting. What's he doing here? With the feud between their factions, Kakashi was under the impression that the desk-shinobi accepted Iruka from a combination of the Hokage being increasingly fed up with their bullshit, increasing retirement numbers, and the chuunin's sheer stubbornness. He wouldn't think that the desk-shinobi would let the teacher anywhere near the Team Seven paperwork disaster.

Iruka, who's been looking around the room with a confused yet unimpressed expression, stares back at Kakashi and raises an eyebrow questioningly. Kakashi suddenly recalls that he owes Iruka some paperwork from before the mission to Wave and decides that he should probably get on that, because Iruka is dressed like it's just a normal day and somehow that makes the chuunin the most terrifying person in the room next to Kakashi's cursed genin.

With a confused but determined look, probably thinking about how she has to get home, Sakura steps forward and makes toward a green-haired, female desk-shinobi to hand in her mission report. The grown woman flinches back, stumbling out of her seat and pulling three swords out of nowhere, two of them held in a single hand. Sakura understandably pauses.

“Desk-Shinobi Midori!” the supervisor snaps.

The green-haired desk-kunoichi looks up like she's suddenly realized what's happened – Kakashi gets that – and starts shaking her head and backing away. “I can't do it,” she says fearfully, her face pale and her swords still raised. “I'm sorry, Supervisor Naoko, I'm too weak. My mother told me stories and I can't do what she did. I just can't.”

And then the woman turns and flees the room through the backdoor, sobbing. The supervisor looks disappointed but understanding, and all of the other desk-shinobi look desperately like they want to follow her. Umino Iruka, last but not least, still looks confused and unimpressed.

Sasuke, next to try, takes a step towards a young, male desk-shinobi's station. The young man – whose name is Kenta, Kakashi is pretty sure, and is the grand-nephew of the Head Desk-Shinobi – leaps back and screams at the top of his lungs. He just... screams and keeps screaming until he runs out of air, demonstrating an impressive lung capacity, and then he jumps out the window head-first.

Sasuke takes a prudent step back and glares up at Kakashi like this is all his fault.

 _Well, technically..._ a part of Kakashi's mind helpfully starts to supply, but Kakashi squashes it before it can get into the details of how he definitely deserves this and is partly responsible for the mess.

Kakashi just shrugs at Sasuke, which earns him an especially frosty glare.

As one, Sasuke and Sakura both turn to Naruto.

Naruto, the only son of the Yondaime Hokage and the previous jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, as well as the only son of a Team Seven cursed paperwork shinobi and the desk-shinobi's most fearless and fearsome prankster, looks blankly back at his team. At this expression, Sasuke and Sakura both shove their teammate forward, making several desk-shinobi flinch back for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with that damn demon fox.

Naruto quickly regains his footing and glares back at his teammates, then looks around the room, and marches decisively up to Umino Iruka's desk. To the teacher's credit, Iruka doesn't flinch or stumble back, and doesn't draw a weapon like many of the other desk-shinobi have.

“Hey, Iruka-sensei!” Naruto says brightly.

And then the chuunin _smiles back_ at Kakashi's genin. “Hello, Naruto,” he replies. “I heard that you had quite the exciting mission.” A glare is shot in Kakashi's direction so quickly that the jounin nearly misses it in his confusion as to what's happening. “Are you here to hand in your mission report?”

“Yup!” Naruto answers, digging around in his pocket for the paper. When he pulls it out, many desk-shinobi make the sign against evil, but Iruka just _accepts_ it without even dying or anything. “It's my first mission report, so I tried real hard to remember everything you taught us and get it right.”

Kakashi is desperate to pull out his Sharingan to check, but it looks like Iruka's smile is completely and utterly genuine. Something's wrong here. Something is so, so wrong here. What's happening? Kakashi has lost all understanding of what the fuck is happening now.

_What the fuck._

“Well, I can tell you that the shinobi behind the desk always appreciate hard work,” Iruka replies gently, then leans to look at the rest of Team Seven. “Sakura, Sasuke, if you come here, then I can process your mission reports as well.”

The room is dead silent as Sakura and Sasuke immediately obey, walking up to the chunnin's desk and handing over their own mission reports. Kakashi follows behind, at a slightly wary pace for his own safety, and is absolutely astounded when _nothing explodes._ Of course, perhaps the explosive tags are delayed or inside the paper folds – that must be it.

Iruka unfolds Naruto's report and skims it, then looks up and smiles. “Well done, Naruto, this looks ready to be filed – a perfectly professional shinobi report. Your first, isn't it? An excellent report for a mission excellently done. Just watch your grammar and ink blots with your next shinobi mission, alright?”

Naruto beams. “Thanks, Iruka-sensei!”

The entire room of desk-shinobi watches as Umino Iruka processes Uzumaki Naruto's report as though it's really just paper and not a horrible, three-generation-going-on-four-long manifestation of a curse. Then in utter confusion and awe as Iruka unfolds Sakura's report next and skims it as well.

“As neat and detailed as always, Sakura,” Iruka says after he's finished, smiling at her as well. “Just watch giving too much detail for the sake of your wrist. You don't need to include research made using Konoha resources after returning, we already have that information and that's what the desk-shinobi services are for. But if you believe you've discovered something important, like a connection that may be relevant, don't hesitate to bring it forward. You've got a good mind."

Sakura blushes slightly, but nods. “Thank you, Iruka-sensei.”

Kakashi watches out of the corner of his eye as Supervisor Naoko sends one of the desk-shinobi off with rushed, whispered directions. The desk-shinobi goes wide-eyed and after a long look towards the impossible thing happening in front of them all, vanishes in a swirl of leaves.

“And well done to you as well, Sasuke,” Iruka says finally, moving to process the last Team Seven report along with the others. “You've summarized mission events very effectively. Excellent work. Don't be hesitant to write more, however, as sometimes small details can be important and you have a way to see and remember more than most.”

Sasuke doesn't say anything, but he does nod thoughtfully.

Iruka finishes processing the reports and smiles at all three of the genin now. “You've all written excellent first reports as shinobi,” he says, and he doesn't look to be lying _at all._ “I'm very proud to have been your teacher and I look forward to seeing your work in the future. I know _some people -_ ” Iruka briefly glares viciously at Kakashi again here. “- don't bother with paperwork, but-”

“How else are the future generation gonna hear about our awesome shinobi adventures?” Naruto finishes brightly for his Academy teacher. “Don't worry, Iruka-sensei! I know that mission reports are an important part of being a good shinobi, so that people can read all about the cool stuff I do!”

Sakura lightly – _lightly,_ what the hell – punches her teammate on the shoulder. “They're also vital to Konoha's information network,” she reminds him knowingly. “Missions are how we know what's happening in the world and how to react. Information is one of a shinobi's best weapons and communication is one of a shinobi village's best defenses!”

Naruto rubs his arm and laughs. “Well, yeah, that too!”

Sasuke crosses his arms and rolls his eyes at his teammate, but _doesn't_ call Naruto any names.

Kakashi is partly wondering if he got attacked by rabid squirrels on the way to the tower and is actually passed out in a puddle right now, when Iruka turns a glare on him that makes Kakashi stiffen where he stands. Is this chuunin teacher _real?_ What's happening? This can't be real.

 _Oh god,_ he's dead. This is what this is.

Except... this can't be hell because there'd be green jumpsuits everywhere then.

“I don't suppose that _you_ actually have a written mission report to hand in today?” Iruka asks crossly.

Kakashi, unable to form words, shakes his head.

“Why am I not surprised?” Iruka asks the ceiling, then says to the genin, “My wonderful students, he may be an excellent jounin, but please don't ever look to your sensei for a role model when it comes to paperwork.”

“Well, that's what _you're_ for, right, Iruka-sensei?”

Naruto laughs. “Yeah, and you'd kick our asses if we did that!”

Sasuke still doesn't say anything, but he nods.

“Language, Naruto,” Iruka reminds, although he looks quite pleased with himself. “I'm glad that that lesson sunk in – good paperwork is important. Now, isn't today your off-day? You should be resting and enjoying yourselves. Being a shinobi is hard work, so it's good to relax after a hard mission. Do you have any more need for your students today, Hatake-san?”

Kakashi, still unable to form words and also unable to think, shakes his head again.

“Good, then you three should go enjoy the sunshine,” Iruka says decisively, still smiling at Team Seven like nothing is wrong in the world. “Naruto, I'll see you around for a meal sometime?”

“Yeah! Believe it!”

Iruka laughs. “Alright. Goodbye, Sakura. Goodbye, Sasuke.”

“Goodbye, Iruka-sensei!”

“Hn.”

“Bye, Iruka-sensei!”

“Bye,” Iruka repeats as the three genin exit the Mission Assignment Room. Then the chuunin looks down at the Team Seven reports in front of him and checks them over again, making several notes as he makes to finish processing them entirely like a good desk-shinobi would with normal reports.

After three minutes where nobody's moved, Iruka looks up again and raises an eyebrow at Kakashi again. “Can I help you with something?” he asks unhappily. “Because unless you've got all that backlog paperwork here, proper, and ready to be processed, then I really do have work to do.”

Kakashi, unable to believe this is reality, just keeps staring.

Iruka scowls at him, then seems to notice that the rest of the Mission Assignment Room is also staring at him. Desk-shinobi – both old and young, jaded and naive, and all armed to the teeth and back – are all staring at this chuunin with wide eyes and open mouths, like they're seeing the Sage of the Six Paths come back to life as an Academy teacher to save them all from a fate worse than death.

“ _Miracle worker,_ ” someone whispers.

“Okay, seriously,” Iruka says after another two minutes of silence. “What the fuck is going on?”

At first the room is silent, like no one dares to answer, but then an old man steps through the entrance, a cane in one hand and a stack of papers under the other arm. The desk-shinobi stare at him reverently, bowing their heads in respect as he passes by, and Kakashi automatically steps out of the way, nodding his own head slightly, as the old man comes up in front of Iruka's desk.

Kakashi recognizes this man, from the stories if not how he was frequently kidnapping Minato all those years ago, and also from how this man would come over to Minato's and Kushina's for supper about once a month and Kakashi basically lived there even after he got an apartment. Kakashi still doesn't know the man's name, but neither did Minato, nor did Jiraiya before him. Even the Sandaime Hokage might not know, for all Kakashi knows.

“Is this the one?” the old man asks.

Iruka looks severely, severely unimpressed and Kakashi suddenly understands how a person can control thirty nin-children and come out alive – by being made of pure levelheaded unflappableness and I-don't-have-time-for-bullshit stubborness.

“Excuse me?” Iruka says.

Supervisor Naoko steps up beside Kakashi, bowing her head in respect. “Yes, Desk-Shinobi-sama,” she answers. “He taught the new Team Seven at the Academy and their properly written reports have been processed without any incident at all.” Her eyes are wide with awe. “None at all.”

The old man has not turned his eyes away from Iruka. “Is this true, Umino Iruka?”

Iruka raises an eyebrow. “Yes,” he says flatly. “I'm sorry, who are you?”

“I... I am a relic of a time passed now,” the old man says heavily.

“Excuse me?” Iruka repeats.

Then an old woman suddenly appears in the doorway, the same age of the man but badly out of breath, staring wide-eyed at the Head Desk-Shinobi. “Is it true?” she demands. “Has it been done?”

“Headmistress Hitomi?” Iruka says, wide-eyed himself at the sudden appearance of his boss. “What are you doing here?”

A good question, Kakashi acknowledges, because no Academy teacher besides Iruka has stepped into the Hokage Tower besides when absolutely necessary for decades. The Head of the Academy, Headmistress Hitomi, the beloved pseudo-mother of Konoha's toddlers, herself has not stepped into the Hokage Tower at all for decades, not since the feud started.

The Hokage actually has to _leave_ the tower to meet with her, and the only reason no one calls her on it is because if she got upset, almost all of Konoha's children would probably somehow start crying because someone was being mean to their Granny Hitomi-sensei. Kakashi knows because Minato complained at first and then started using meetings with her as a way to escape from the mountains of paperwork than came with being Hokage for as long as he could.

Which is exactly why Kakashi will absolutely _never_ be Hokage.

“Is is true?” Headmistress Hitomi repeats, looking incredibly desperate. “Is it _true?_ ”

The Head Desk-Shinobi turns to look at her and nods. “It is true,” he answers, looking more aged in this moment than Kakashi has ever seen the extraordinarily stressed man. “The cycle has been broken,” he announces to the room at large. “Team Seven's curse has been snuffed out.” Then he turns to look at Iruka again. “And the prophecy has been fulfilled...”

Headmistress Hitomi comes forward to stand next to the Head Desk-Shinobi, which Kakashi has never seen before without one of them immediately trying to stab the other, which itself was extremely rare and last happened about fifteen years ago. Instead, she only looks beseechingly towards the teacher in front of her, looking like she was about to burst into tears.

“Iruka...” she says softly. “I knew you were special, but... I... thank you.”

“Er, you're welcome?” Iruka replies, before shaking his head like he's also trying to wake up from this reality that is definitely not real. “No, wait, _what?_ What the _hell_ is going on? What cycle? What curse? What prophecy? What are you all talking about?”

The Head Desk-Shinobi and Headmistress Hitomi look at each other and smile.

“The impossible is often achieved by those who are not aware that it is impossible,” Headmistress Hitomi reminds her once-lover and current-nemesis, who may or may not be her nemesis any longer, Kakashi is also still trying to figure out where his life has gone and how to get back to it.

The Head Desk-Shinobi chuckles, then looks back to Iruka. “It was secretly prophecized, long ago, that one would come to end our both our curse... and our feud. They would be an impossible being, both of the Academy teachers and the desk-shinobi, and the chosen one would end our suffering and bring peace, rejoining the great divide between two factions of Konoha.”

Hang on, that sounds really, really, _really_ familiar to Kakashi. He's not a desk-shinobi (god, no) or an Academy teacher (GOD, NO) but he has definitely heard that before, he just has to remember where he heard it... oh shit. Kakashi remembers where he's heard that stuff before.

 _Kushina_ made that prophecy. And when Kakashi says 'made', he really means: Uzumaki Kushina  _made that up._

That so-called 'prophecy' was just Kushina dicking around one night, trying to cheer her husband up from a terrible day of dealing with the feuding Academy teachers and desk-shinobi. She got really dramatic about it, utilizing a bed sheet and standing on the coffee table, speaking so grandly that Minato actually collapsed giggling on the floor and couldn't stop for ten minutes. Kakashi remembers it so well because his eye actually hurt the next day from rolling it at his dumbass sensei and his ridiculous wife so much.

There's no way that the desk-shinobi spied on the Yondaime Hokage's personal life, but Kushina used to prank the desk-shinobi like there was no tomorrow. It got to the point where there was a petition to permanently ban her from Hokage Tower as a genin, which never worked because Kushina was the Shodaime's wife's great-niece, so the desk-shinobi just had to suffer squirrels in the filing cabinets and all their furniture on wheels until Kushina apparently found other hobbies.

It's entirely possible and incredibly likely that Kushina went back to her old hobbies and made a prophecy out of sheer nostalgia. Or maybe Kushina spread her false prophecy around as the beginnings of a plot to give her husband some relief from the feud. Kushina was clever like that, and she was always was damn good at ending fights – starting them too, which the Shodaime's wife, Lady Uzumaki Mito, apparently repeatedly and disapprovingly told her a lady should not do, but especially good at finishing them (which Lady Uzumaki Mito apparently approved of greatly and considered very lady-like).

Kakashi resolves _never_ to tell anyone about this, because... if this is real... oh, god, if this is real...

An invented prophecy to solve an invented curse? Believe it.

Iruka stares the Head Desk-Shinobi and Headmistress Hitomi. “You're joking, right?” he says, still unimpressed but also maybe a little desperate now. “I thought that feud stuff was a really bad joke, because it made no sense. You don't need to keep trying it. I'm not going to fall for it.”

The Head Desk-Shinobi and Headmistress Hitomi exchange another look between them, and turn back to their prophecized ( _Kushina, you masterful trickster_ ) chosen one. Their expressions are soft but not pitying, and Iruka looks absolutely horrified.

Kakashi understands why, but he can't understand how Iruka convinced himself any of these people, or Konoha's shinobi in general, were sane. Like... how? When would any of these people have given any indication that they were joking about this stuff? 

“You may not believe it, Iruka, but it is true,” Headmistress Hitomi says gently.

The Head Desk-Shinobi. “We have been waiting for you for a very my longer, my... successor.”

The room of desk-shinobi gasps as the Head Desk-Shinobi sets his stack of papers down on Iruka's desk, then reaches inside his clothing to pull out something that sets off whispering among the watching desk-shinobi. It gleams brightly with reflected light, so it takes a moment for Kakashi to understand what the metal thing is, but he quickly realizes that it's a nameplate.

The Head Desk-Shinobi sets it down on Iruka's desk as the teacher gapes at it, then at him. One random desk-shinobi faints into the arms of their fellows. Kakashi almost feels like gaping himself, or giggling, because it just reads 'Head Desk-Shinobi', with no name on it whatsoever.

“...What?” Iruka says.

“I am old and I am tired,” the old man answers, leaning heavily on his cane. “I have done my duty to Konoha, and I have been waiting for one who could do my faction proud for a long time. Umino Iruka, that person is clearly, undeniably you... the breaker of the Team Seven curse.”

Iruka looks like he wants to cry from frustration. “What _curse?_ ”

The Head Desk-Shinobi – _previous_ Head Desk-Shinobi now, Kakashi guesses – and Headmistress Hitomi ignore him. Instead of answering, Headmistress Hitomi pulls a second nameplate out of her own clothing, which sends another wave of gasps and whispers through the desk-shinobi as she sets it down next to the second nameplate on Iruka's desk.

This one reads 'Head of the Academy'.

“I too am old and tired,” she says, expression grateful. “It is time for us relics of a time passed to make way for a new generation and a far brighter future. I can think of no one more suitable to lead our factions in this new tomorrow than the chosen one of prophecy... together.”

Iruka just stares at both nameplates, probably praying to anyone who's listening. But unfortunately for him, Kakashi thinks, they're going to have a hell of a time hearing him over the sound of Kushina's cackling from the afterlife. Kakashi is almost surprised they can't hear it now.

“You will do well, young Umino,” the previous Head Desk-Shinobi says, bowing low like one might to the Hokage or Daimyo. “Desk-Shinobi-sama.”

Hitomi, smiling proudly, also bows lowly. “Headmaster Iruka,” she says respectfully.

But before Iruka can do anything like break down crying, scream, faint, or do any of the hundreds of things he probably wants to do by the bewildered expression on his face, the previous Head Desk-Shinobi turns to ex-Headmistress Hitomi and takes her hands in his. The room of desk-shinobi gasps again, and another poor desk-shinobi faints with a hard thump.

“Hitomi,” the old man says desperately, “I know that we have made enemies of each other in these long years, out of a terrible argument and that idiotic issue with the shinobi postal service, but I want you to know that I still love you. I have loved you always, even though I have been terrible at showing it. I know that I am no longer the Head Desk-Shinobi anymore, only an old man, but can you ever forgive me?”

“Oh, I already forgave you a long time ago,” Hitomi replies. “Can you, my beloved Ren, forgive this stubborn old woman, no longer an Academy Headmistress, who has loved you always too?”

The previous Head Desk-Shinobi, whose name is apparently Ren, nods, eyes full of tears, and the two old shinobi embrace lovingly. Kakashi, who most certainly does not need to brush away any sentimental tears and isn't going to be telling Gai and his sensei's sensei all about this, looks around the room and sees several desk-shinobi sobbing with emotion. Oh good, not just him.

Hitomi and Ren pull apart just enough to look at each other.

“Did we ever finish filing those divorce papers?” Hitomi asks thoughtfully.

Ren appears to think about it, then shakes his head. “I don't think we ever got past Form 7D,” he answers, above more gasping and fainting by the desk-shinobi. “Actually, I don't think we ever told anyone that we got married. Did we remember to do that?”

“No, dear, I don't think we did. Perhaps that's why we had that trouble with the postal service?”

Ren nods. “That would certainly explain it.”

“Well, let's go tell them this time so they don't mix up our mail again,” Hitomi says with a decisive nod. “I already have all my paperwork filed for retirement and the position transfer, so we can leave right away, if you like.”

At the declaration of prompt and efficient paperwork, Ren sighs. “No wonder I fell in love with you. I already have everything filed too; let's go tell your previous employees of the good news and their new leader, then go home.”

“That sounds nice,” Hitomi agrees, and the two old shinobi walk out of the Mission Assignment Room together, hand in hand and obviously deeply in love.

Kakashi wonders if the Hokage knows that the biggest faction feud in all of Konoha happened because of a marital spat. Kakashi decides that if not, someone who will greatly appreciate their sensei's sensei's sensei's reaction should tell him. Kakashi intends to be that person.

Kakashi looks back at Iruka again, who is still staring at the two nameplates like he can't believe his eyes. Understandable, since even with the unorthodox promotions that happen in shinobi societies, it's not every day that a chuunin in his twenties gets made the head of two of Konoha's oldest and most powerful factions because of a marital spat, a prank that turned into a prophecy, and accidentally breaking a curse by just doing his job. 

“Congratulations, Iruka-sensei,” Kakashi offers brightly to the man that unknowingly saved him from a terrible, terrible fate. He's so grateful that he's going to go home and do all of his paperwork – just this once – as a present of thanks.

Iruka whimpers, not taking his eyes off the two nameplates. “This can't be happening,” he mumbles, probably mostly to himself. “This _can't_ be happening. It'll be so much work. I can't do that much work so this can't be happening. I'm dreaming because this _can't_ be happening.”

“I assure you,” Supervisor Naoko says beside Kakashi. “That this is happening.” Then, before Iruka's wide eyes, she kneels in front of his desk. “We are prepared to serve you in whatever capacity you wish, Desk-Shinobi-sama, and grateful to follow you into a new age of peace and enlightenment. What is your will, Desk-Shinobi-sama?”

“Please don't call me that,” Iruka says desperately to the whole room of desk-shinobi now kneeling in his honor, except for the ones who fainted and are just unconscious on the floor.

Supervisor Naoko's brow furrows in confusion. “Umino-sama?”

“Oh,  _god,_ ” Iruka moans, dropping his head into his hands and then onto the desk.

“Hey, supervisor, I think your new leader needs some time to himself to adjust to the changes,” Kakashi offers on the other man's behalf. Naoko nods and quickly goes about ordering the desk-shinobi out of the room, the conscious ones carrying their fainted friends out of various doors and windows, clearing the room in less than ten seconds.

Iruka hasn't moved.

“Are you alright, Iruka-sensei?” Kakashi asks.

“I don't know what's happening anymore and I want to wake up from this nightmare,” Iruka replies flatly, head and hands still on the desk. “I don't want to be in charge of things. I don't want two jobs. I want to teach children, then to go home and sit on the couch and watch a stupid movie while eating junk food and ignoring my marking for longer than is sensible.”

Those are very admirable goals, so Kakashi nods approvingly even though that's never going to happen now and this poor bastard has no idea what he's in for. “I don't think your new employees are going to let you do that, Iruka-sensei,” he reminds the other man. “Ending a feud and breaking a curse... those are big things.”

“I still don't know what either of those are about. I literally just _did my job._ I thought people were _sane._ ”

“Well, that was your first mistake.”

Iruka snorts, then stays silent for awhile, probably coming to terms with suddenly being one of the most powerful people in Konoha next to the Hokage. The desk-shinobi's paperwork prowess alone can bring department to their knees, but with the Academy as well? That's a formidable amount of power for any one person to have; probably exactly the sort of job that the person who has it shouldn't actually want to have, which Kakashi takes as a good sign.

“Hatake?”

“Yes, Iruka-sensei?”

“This didn't happen until you brought your genin team in. I'm blaming you for all of this.”

Kakashi just shrugs, because he was prepared to suffer a lot more than he did today and he's pretty sure that Iruka won't screw over his life at least while Kakashi remains Naruto's jounin-sensei. As far as returning bad energy goes, there are far worse forms it could chose to take to improve his perspective on life than an irate and overworked Umino Iruka... at least... probably. Kakashi's like... forty percent sure.

“Sure thing, Headmaster Desk-Shinobi-sama.”

“Ugh,” Iruka says.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah... congrats to anyone who called it that they'd be normal. Poor Iruka. 
> 
> (EDIT (18/7/17): Tbh, this was written partly to write Frazzled!Kakashi and partly to answer people who kept asking for more and more. Like, I am not a writing machine. I only have so many crack ideas. Naruto and company will be driving the village nuts soon enough for non-paperwork-related issues.) 
> 
> If I do write any more of Team Seven, by including Sai, for example, then it'll be a part of the ["Team Seven vs. Paperwork"](http://archiveofourown.org/series/376589) series. But I think I'd rather work on other things in this crazy alternate universe first, such as Kushina's team versus the desk-shinobi, InoShikaCho clans and platonic polygamy, and Team Gai and the Mori-Maito family (Rock Lee would be the best big brother ever and you can't convince me otherwise). 
> 
> I could probably trace this weirdness back to Hashirama and Tobirama, but I don't know their stories very well, so it probably won't happen. So please comment what you liked about this series and this particular fic, and go ahead and suppose whatever you like about the future. I'm on [tumblr](http://lullabyknell.tumblr.com) if anyone wants to come say hey, but I must warn that I don't blog any Naruto and blog very, very little anime.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Team Kakashi vs. Paperwork [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12291849) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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